Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch

Welcome toAfrica Great Lakes Democracy Watch Blog.Our objective is to promote the institutions of democracy,social justice,Human Rights,Peace, Freedom ofExpression, and Respect to humanity in Rwanda,Uganda,DR Congo, Burundi,Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya,Ethiopia, and Somalia. We strongly believe that Africa will develop if only our presidents stop being rulers of men and become leaders of citizens. We support Breaking the Silence Campaign for DR Congo since we believe the democracy in Rwanda means peace inDRC. Follow this link to learn more about the origin of the war in both Rwanda and DR Congo:http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library

The draft of the report, generated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was leaked to Le Monde on August 26, 2010, and its release was then postponed until October 1st, so that Rwanda and other governments accused of atrocities could prepare responses to be published at the same time.

Wikimedia Commons

Rwandan President Paul Kagame was sworn in for another 7-year term, after the explosive, August 26th leak of a UN report documenting genocidal massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus, by his army, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Last week Rwandan President Paul Kagame was in New York City to co-chair the UN General Assembly's Summit on the Millenium Development Goals to eradicate poverty, but Rwandan, Congolese, U.S. and Spanish activists converged on the UN as well, to protest Kagame and what they say is his army's longstanding impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal Hutu massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as documented in the report. The group also protested what they say is a longstanding cover-up and impunity for the Kagame regime's massacres of Rwandan Hutus in Rwanda, as documented by the long suppressed Gersony Report. Activists including law professor and international criminal defense lawyer Peter Erlinder, Spanish human rights activist Juan Carrero, and Spanish Senator Pere Sampol, demanded that the official version of the report

Rwanda News Agency

Kenyan Lawyer Kennedy Ogetto with his client American Law Professor Peter Erlinder on June 14th, outside a Rwandan courtroom, where Erlinder appealed a Rwandan judge's decision denying him bail on June 7th. He has since been released and returned to the U.S. Last week, speaking in New York City, he said that previous UN reports documenting Rwanda's atrocities in Congo had been ignored.

match the version leaked to Le Monde, despite pressure from the Rwandan and Ugandan governments, and the African Union, which typically supports the U.S. and its allies' strategic engagements in Africa. Speaking in New York, on a panel titled "End Impunity in Rwanda," Law Professor Peter Erlinder said that the Rwandan army's crimes had been documented in past UN reports, but ignored. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, leader of Rwanda's opposition FDU-Inkingi Coalition of political parties, speaking from Kigali, Rwanda, where she remains under arrest and forbidden to leave the city of Kigali, also said that the report confirms what has long been a "Pucinella secret" that many knew but pretended not to know, a secret that could not be concealed forever, about Kagame and his Rwandan army's crimes in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

FDU-Inkingi Party

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza says that the UN Report confirms what has long been a “Pucinella” secret that many knew but pretended not to know.

"The RPF took the power in July 1994," she said, "and after they took power, the killing was going ahead until 1997, when they killed the people in the Congo." Eric Kamba, Executive Director of the Boston-based Congolese Development Center, protested with Boston's Congolese community, then traveled to the New York City protests. Kamba, who hails from Congo's central Kasai Province, said he wants the world to understand that Congo is under occupation, by the Rwandan and Ugandan elites, who are plundering its enormous natural resource wealth, and that Congolese President Joseph Kabila is collaborating in the occupation. "The Congolese government of Joseph Kabila wrote a 51-page response to the UNHCHR report rejecting the proposal for an independent international tribunal," he said. "Kabila is calling instead for 'specialized chambers' within the Congolese justice system, even though he knows the Congolese justice system is barely functioning. The world should understand that Congo is occupied by Rwanda and Uganda, whose elites are plundering its enormous resources." "We will all be standing by to read the official version of the UN report on October 1st," he added. "We will protest if it has been altered under pressure, and we will call for international justice either way." Professor Peter Erlinder, and many other critics of covert U.S. military interventions in the region, including Erlinder's fellow ICTR defense lawyer Christopher Black, say that, ultimately, the US, the UK, and allied Western powers are responsible, that they armed, trained, and provided logistical and intelligence support to both the Rwandan and Ugandan armies so as to advance their agenda, most of all to secure Congo's vast geostrategic mineral wealth. ICTR Lawyer Christopher Black's documentation of U.S. and allied involvement was published this month on the websites of Monthly Review Zine, Global Research, and the San Francisco Bay View.